Chapter 9

"Because of that planet's highly unusual position — the outer system is walled off by a meteor storm and multiple black holes, very nearly impassable — few fleets in history ever reached it successfully. The cosmic archive's records of it were therefore always sparse. Compounding this, the planet was destroyed ten thousand years ago, and nearly all associated research was destroyed with it."

The disappointment in Elder Matthew's voice was plain. "I had hoped to find, in this survivor of Earth, the key to the riddle of Blood reproduction. And we have found nothing at all."

Elder Matthew pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed, shut off the star field, and walked back to the center of the lectern.

"However, gentlemen, ladies — fortunately, a small laboratory accident has produced an unexpected discovery." His delivery came back up. "Which is that this organism's blood exerts on the Blood an almost instinctual, and lethal, attraction."

He gestured at the screen. "Observe the detailed analysis. Its blood composition is highly unusual; both the molecular structure and the manner of combination are unlike anything we have previously encountered. It differs from the energy-rich blood of the Sacred Blood. It differs from the toxin-laden blood of the Half-Bloods, and it differs again from the near-flavorless blood of the blue-bloods. This is an entirely new and independent category of its own."

"As for the blood of the Grazen livestock we breed in bulk as standard feed — that does not bear comparison at all. Even the blood of the Mannati mermaids, long held to be the finest delicacy available anywhere, cannot match it."

Here Elder Matthew, somewhat agitated, adjusted his collar, and then delivered his conclusion with great seriousness. "Therefore. On the basis of the overwhelming attraction this blood exerts upon our species, and on the basis of the strange sense of familiarity the Blood experience subconsciously upon smelling it, I infer the following. If the legend is true, and our ancestors did once live upon Earth, then this organism was in all likelihood our species' principal food source at that time."

The nobles below erupted.

And every eye now turned toward the Earth organism on the display platform came up hot, with something in it unmistakably like the undisguised hunger of a person assessing a rare ingredient.

"...body temperature data... organ function... critical survival thresholds..."

The report continued onstage. Mary had stopped taking in any of it.

From the moment she woke until now she had not had a mouthful of water or a bite of anything to eat.

She had run through a frozen wasteland, been injured, and lost blood.

The wounds had closed over after that strange vampire licked them, but the blood she had lost did not come back, and a large tube of it had since been drawn off for research.

Presumably because vampires carry no body heat of their own, they are not especially sensitive to whether an environment is warm or cold.

So nobody should expect any provision for warmth. In the coldest predawn hour of the deepest part of winter, the windows of this magnificent palace stood wide open.

Lying in a freezing transparent box, cold and starving, Mary shook past any control while her awareness thinned out, and had long since drifted, somewhere in the middle of the Elder's interminable scientific report, into a state of half-conscious haze.

Physiologically speaking, this state is the moment immediately before death. Or, alternatively, it resembles sinking into the deepest and sweetest of dreams.

And in this good dream, Linda was in the kitchen making her a perfect omelet in a frying pan.

That day, she had actually passed her AP Calculus practice exam.

The paper assigned for the weekend was short, so she finally had time to make plans with her best friend and go see the new summer movie.

She couldn't remember the name of that film, but the story was about the destruction of Earth.

Ah. That part was real.

Earth had been destroyed a long time ago.

No mother. No omelet. No teachers, and no friend to skip class with and go to a movie.

Only her, still alive.

Fixed in a display case like a biological specimen, for whatever unfamiliar eyes on the other side of the glass cared to look her over.

Mom. Dad. I'm so cold, and I'm so hungry, and everything hurts. I don't want to be here.

So this is how fragile human beings turn out to be, standing in front of the other species of the universe.

God. Anyone. Please get me out of here. Take me away.

On the enormous monitor above the stage, every index representing her vital signs began to swing violently.

The phenylethylamine concentration in her blood dropped fast, and her endorphin and adrenaline levels fell off a cliff.

Elder Matthew turned, startled — and before he could work out what was happening, a fast-moving black shape cut across his line of sight.

The black-and-red cloak had not finished falling before the crystal coffin around Mary was destroyed by a single punch.

The newcomer tore through the electrode leads binding her as easily as brushing aside a spiderweb, and lifted the body out of the case one-handed: cold all over, eyes shut, the color of clay.

His sharp nails snapped the collar off her neck with an audible crack. Then he bent his head, extended his fangs, and drove them precisely into the faintly beating vessel in her throat.

Every one of the Blood in that hall was stunned by how fast it happened.

And in the instant the vessel opened, the scent of that human blood — that strange, luring sweetness — spread through the whole hall at once.

The smell of it, mixed with the distinct pheromone a Sacred Blood releases during the rite of Claiming, turned into a warped and deeply seductive perfume.

Every one of the Blood present fell into something like a hallucinatory feast, and watched, without willing it, breath held, until the rite was finished.

Long silver hair running across a night-colored robe. Red lips, white fangs, and a crimson trace of blood like a rose opening all at once into something too beautiful to be safe.

When his mouth left her, the mark on her throat was a bloodfeeder's brand, the crest of a Sacred Blood, declaring absolute ownership.

"Well, then." A thin smile came up, the smile of a man who has already decided the outcome. He gathered the unconscious Mary up and rose. "By the oldest law of the Blood — this child belongs to me now."

Elder Matthew, recovering at last, watched the cloak sweep around and the figure walk out, and put a hand to his forehead against the ache. "Prince Anthony Wilson. You absolute menace."

Below the stage, Michael, who had already risen to his feet, stood exactly where he was for a long moment. Then he sat slowly back down.

...

Mary did not become a vampire.